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Deacquisitioning . . .

By Steven J. Meyers

Found in: | Outside | Fishing | Fly Fishing |

Deacquisition. I hate to begin a fishing piece with profanity. I was always taught that using bad language was a clear indication of an impoverished vocabulary. But there you have it. I only know one word for it, and it's this expletive: deacquisition. No angler ever wants to hear that word - certainly never actually do it! Every fly rod is precious. Every reel, a gem. Even the crappy ones. They have, well, history. That worn out old Pfleuger - it's the one you caught your first fish in Lime Creek with. That 10-foot, 9-weight hasn't seen steelhead water in decades. But letting go of it would be like parting with a piece of your soul. You landed the biggest fish you'd ever seen, let alone caught, with that rod. Selling it would be a sacrilege. But sometimes, there's just no other way.

I know what you're thinking. I can hear you. "Jeez, Steve, it can't be that bad. Surely there's some other way you can put food on the table!" Embarrassed, I am forced to admit it's not that bad. There's plenty of food on the table. But there's this really sweet 28-gauge shotgun at the pawn shop . . .

Selling off gear isn't really as awful as it seems on first blush; in fact, there are a number of immediate benefits besides producing cash to buy other pieces of outdoor gear you'll one day no longer use and feel equally bad about selling: it may even make you a better fisherman.

"A better fisherman," you ask, "how in the hell can it do that?"

Let me explain.

All too often, a fishing client will show up with a wrinkle in his casting, a rumple in his loops, a hitch, as they say, in his fly-casting giddyup. He'll ask me to watch him cast and offer suggestions, if I don't mind.

I don't mind. I watch. I furrow my brow. I wrinkle my nose, and ask a few questions.

"Have you practiced at all with this rod?"

"This one?"

"Isn't that what I just asked you?"

"Well, no. I was practicing with the one-weight, the really light one, so sweet looking, because I cast that one worst of all. And, jeez, I hadn't spent hardly any time with my 6-foot 2-weight, so I . . ."

"How many rods are you trying to cast?"

"Dunno."

"Just how many fly rods do you own?"

"Let me think. Uh, twenty-seven."

"How much time have you spent actually practicing with this one, the 5-weight trout rod you really need to get a feel for and know how to cast well?"

"Gosh, now that you ask, I haven't picked it up since last season . . ."

"Okay, I've watched you cast, and I have some suggestions. Practice with the few rods you actually fish. And after you've got it all sorted down and you're practicing and fishing with a few of them . . ."

"Yes . . ."

"Take the slack out of the line before you begin your backcast. Stop applying the power so soon. Start slow. Let the rod load up before you accelerate and power it. End your stroke sharply - no slop, no mushiness. And for god's sake, stop breaking your damn wrist, you know better! And one more thing . . ."

"Uh huh."

"After you sell all those rods you're no longer using, go fishing more often."

The people who sell fly rods are going to hate me for this, but you really don't need 27 trout rods. For trout, depending on how widely you travel and how diverse the water you fish might be, you could probably manage with (gasp!) one trout rod if you absolutely had to, two or three trout rods will cover damn near anything. Fish them a lot, practice with them, get to know them (buy a lesson or watch some videos if you don't know what to practice, or how), and I bet your wrinkles, your rumples and the hitches in the old casting giddyup will iron themselves out.

I did that myself the past few years. Deacquisitioned, that is. Over the decades I'd acquired, let me think, something like 27 fly rods. (Is there an echo in here?)

Took a slew of them I hadn't used in ages, hauled them off to the pawn shop in two stages and traded them for a light 12-gauge side-by-side and that sweet little 28-gauge I told you about. Tiny little wisp of a thing. Weighs 5 1/2 pounds.

Recently, I went shooting with a buddy who's a shotgun instructor. I shot the heavy, over-under target gun I use on clay birds, and I wasn't shooting nearly as well as I'd like. You know how it is, the whole move just didn't feel familiar or natural. I asked him to watch me and make a few suggestions, if he wouldn't mind.

He didn't mind. He watched. He furrowed his brow. Wrinkled his nose. First words out of his mouth . . .

"Have you practiced at all with this gun? How many different guns are you trying to shoot?"

Steven J. Meyers is the author of On Seeing Nature, Lime Creek Odyssey, Streamside Reflections, The Nature of Flyfishing, Notes from the San Juans and San Juan River Chronicle